Is Smart In-Home Eldercare the Solution to China's Aged Care Crisis?

Smart residential care could take the pressure off public eldercare services, a commentary argues

By
Zhang Qingchen
Updated Apr.16

Intelligent in-home eldercare systems could personalise and boost care for elderly people who live alone, while taking pressure off overstretched public care facilities, a commentary in the Guangming Daily argues.

Smart systems offer the elderly timely help in the case of an emergency, the commentary says. It offers as evidence the case of a 79-year-old man who suffered a fall in an apartment in the Chaoyang District of Beijing and went without help until he later recovered consciousness. After coming around, he summoned an ambulance crew with the push of a button on his table, which arrived in under 10 minutes. The pilot program should be expanded to cover all elderly people who live alone, a spokesperson from the Chaoyang Civil Affair Bureau of Beijing said.

Commentator Tangji Weide writes that China's eldercare market is facing a dilemma. On the one hand, traditionally diligent and thrifty older people are unwilling to buy their way into expensive and luxurious private care institutions; on the other hand, many lower-cost public services are at capacity.

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